Reclamere, a leading provider of data destruction, recovery and security management services, expects to expand its staff by 10 percent in 2009, adding four new positions to its 40-person operation.

Angie Singer Keating, co-founder and vice president of compliance and security, says the positive outlook rides on a strong uptrend in requirements for data security among the 8-year-old company's core base of clients, which she describes as "highly regulated and truly security conscious."

They include health services--"a ton of hospital work" related to requirements of the Health Information Privacy Act, which don't slow down in a recession--banks, and colleges and universities. Almost every major company, school district, and university in Pittsburgh relies on Reclamere to scrub and recycle computer hard-drives, a service the company provides through a secure computer recycling center where it applies a proprietary process to remove data from as many as 1,200 hard drives in an 8-hour cycle.

A flight to quality also works in Reclamere's favor, Keating says, particularly in serving clients in banking and financial services.  

"I expect to see a huge transition in the data destruction and recycling end of our business," she says. "The bottom-feeders will go away."

On that list she cites solo-operators that advertise behind Internet storefronts with a promise of services far beyond home-basement capabilities--and the convicted felon who offers to recycle computers for incautious businesses and individuals.

Low-cost security providers often make money from the resale of equipment without removing data--or, worse, by selling it for the data it contains. That's only one breach of security that data-laden company's face in a worldwide black market for identify theft and network intrusion, as a constant drumbeat of news stories--such as this one in the Washington Post--makes clear.

In these times then, Keating says, data protection services, and a growing demand for data forensics, are likely to be easier to sell by a company such as Reclamere, which performs all work with a bonded staff, using no outside subcontractors, each of whom has passed extensive background checks.

Source: Reclamere, Angie Singer Keating
Writer: Joseph Plummer
 
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